Having serious neglected these blogs for a month, I am back on track with a question. Has marriage become a temporary condition? While California gays expending enormous effort to gain the right to be married, fighting for same sex marriage, I wonder if heterosexuals have lost the ability to understand the entire idea.

I know a young couple, married for five years. Two children - prekindergarten and toddler. An idyllic couple, really; so in love they couldn’t wait to marry. Husband has great job. Nice home. Family support and encouragement. social life. Education. They have it all.

One day, the wife decides she’s bored. She trolls Facebook for someone to relieve the boredom. Her family watches her accumulate male “friends” on the website. Her husband, secure in knowing he provides well, helps out with the kids, runs to the grocery store when required, and tells wife she’s pretty when he thinks of it, feels pretty secure. Life is good. He believes women and men can be friends without hanky panky and he trusts his wife. He sits on his couch, a lot, watching TV. He’s tired - 60 hour work week.

Later, after it all implodes, she will tell. him she made a conscious choice to hurt him. She never articulates why. Boredom?

So the wife hooks up with a boyfriend - a guy the husband befriended when they served together in Korea, and later, Iraq, bombs bursting in air. The scumbag came to visit the couple often. Lived off them for a time - he doesn’t choose to work. Bonded with the wife while the husband slept.

The couple went on a lovely vacation with the kids. NO, not the husband and wife. The wife and the boyfriend. they traveled three states, posted photos of the happy family entertaining the children. Lovely mountain venues. Stayed with the wife’s mom for a bit. And then the wife came home, packed up three small backpacks, and ran away with the kids to another state, where the scumbag resided in a rusty trailer. He’s unemployed, of course.

Refused to come home. Husband got a court order to bring home his biological son, the toddler. Wife said - ok, fine. I have one child and a boyfriend.

The marriage has now become a “case.” The children are confused, lonely and scared. They have each lost one parent, and each other. One has lost his friends, his home, his toys, his school, his clothes, too. the wife says - hey, he’ll adjust and get over it. I have my boyfriend. But no job, no money, no prospects, no place to live. She bunks in with whatever people will have her and a child for however long.

The husband and wife send unbelievably accusatory text messages to each other more often than hourly. They phone each other on prepaid cell phones and detail what action they each will take next to make the other feel like trash. They are out to annihilate each other and it’s working.

The kids? Adjusting to an extent. On the outside. They laugh sometimes. They play, and at least one of them gets plenty of hugs. No one knows where the other is, in what conditions, or with whom.

The husband and wife aren’t gay. they have always had the right to choose a partner, create a “relationship” and marry without giving any thought to the long term. When the wedding is over and the housework sets in, the job takes over, the kids get messy and cranky, the dog pukes, and the in-laws interfere, the husband and wife have the right to dissolve the marriage.

Gays, all over the country, are petitioning and fighting for the same right. Perhaps they will get what they want and maybe they will have the good sense to figure the marriages they may create in the future are worth fighting for, not fighting about. We heteros seem to have lost that perspective. It is so damned easy to get bored, resent housework, feel tired, and run away to something else. But what happens to the kids?

Nearly every U.S. state has boiled divorce down to irreconcilable differences. You don’t have to have a reason to break up. You don’t have to think about the pros and cons. Just sign the papers, pay the lawyer, and walk away. Most women never recover financially. Most children never recover emotionally. But hey, if you’re bored with housework, you gotta do something, right?

Writer Cynthia Reeser asks our fantastic women readers:

Have you ever thought of writing, but weren’t sure where to begin? Or maybe you consider yourself a writer of sorts, but are looking for your next great idea. If the preceding sounds familiar, here’s a word of advice: don’t rule out reality. It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction, and if you think about it, you probably have at least a few experiences that would fill the bill. Real experiences can make for some of the most interesting storylines and sources of inspiration, especially when writing for children, who love plenty of action and adventurous situations. But keep in mind that details of people, mood, events, and places can also be changed. The key is to listen to the story.

(WomenDayByDay is pleased to offer a guest post by Cynthia Reeser, author of How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Back-To-Basics). Now, please enjoy the rest of Cynthia’s advice.)

Cynthia Reeser

Children’s author JoAnn Early Macken, author of Sing-Along Song and Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move, took her experience of a botched camping trip and asked herself “What if?” When writing about her experience, instead of feeling as though she had to stay true to the events precisely as they happened, she reassessed her theme and audience. She adjusted her story to make it more interesting to her young audience. If you choose to write about a true event and change none of the details, it would be classified as a memoir or nonfiction. However, for fiction, let true events inspire the work, rather than enslave it. When writing, you might ask yourself What if? What if, instead of everyone arriving home shaken, but safe, someone had fallen overboard and had to be rescued? What if the action were heightened with the threat of an oncoming storm or debris in the water? Ask yourself how you can heighten the interest of each situation you write about for your readers. Look for ways to make them feel drawn to what is happening, and the result will be a pair of eyes that is glued to the page.

Journaling is a good way to keep track of experiences that inspire you or that are memorable. Anything out of the ordinary or that strikes a chord is fair game. You may choose to keep a separate journal of “interesting experiences,” or have an area in which you can record thoughts on stories you read, ideas for new tales based on stories you hear other people tell, events from your own past or present, or simply enjoyable moments with your children, relatives, and friends. If you are struggling to remember an event from the past, write what you remember. Sometimes this technique can trigger more memories, but the beauty of fiction writing is that you can take many liberties to alter facts and include new information that moves the story along, enhances the character dynamics, and increases the overall interest of the story for your readers.

To spark new ideas, try recalling events from childhood in your journal. This is an especially good way to prepare children’s and young adult writers for story development, as it can be a good beginning to remembering yourself as you were at the age of your intended audience. If you are writing picture books, try to remember what it was like on your first day of school, and write about that. For example:

• What were you feeling?
• Did you make new friends immediately, or did it take time?
• Were you afraid of the dark when you were six years old?
• Did you ever take any memorable vacations?
• What was your bedtime routine like?
• Look at old pictures in your family album to spark ideas. Pick one or more photographs that speak to you. What was happening in those pictures? What age were you? Who else was there and what were they doing?
• Go through some of your old things that you still have from when you were a child. Diaries, notebooks, toys and trinkets, articles of clothing, artwork, and other memorabilia can trigger memories and fresh ideas.

If you are a nonfiction writer and you are struggling to piece together snippets of memory, start by writing about what you do remember. Then talk to others who were witness to the event in some way, but keep in mind that even if it is a memoir, your story is just that: your story, told from your point of view, written in your words.

Nonfiction is a bit different. Unless you are writing an autobiography or a biography of someone you know, your information will almost always come from primary and secondary sources on your subject. There is plenty of information written about Benjamin Franklin, as well as historical archives that you can reference to help your story along. However, this material does not generally fall under the category of writing from life experience. Apply the techniques suggested above to make the writing relate to your audience, so that they can relate better to your writing.

Cynthia Reeser is editor-in-chief and founder of a quarterly literary journal, Prick of the Spindle, and author of HOW TO WRITE AND PUBLISH A SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN’S BOOK: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW EXPLAINED SIMPLY. Cynthia authored a book on Kindle publishing, anticipated in early spring 2010. Her works of  criticism, nonfiction, and poetry are widely published in both print and online media.

Read more:

Women elders have much to say

Electronic books and today’s writing women

Awesome resource for aspiring writers